ARTIST OVERVIEW

"Without ethical consciousness, a painter is only a decorator."-Robert Motherwell

Robert Motherwell (1915-1991) was a pioneer and leading exponent of the postwar American abstract expressionist movement. A painter, collagist, printmaker, writer, and theorist, Motherwell, along with Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko, defined abstract expressionism by concentrating on its emotive possibilities and engagement with the subconscious and by departing from the formal concerns of European modernism.

Characterized by broad brushwork, primary colors, and a carefully structured and organized rhythm of dynamic lines and organic forms, Motherwell's paintings combine both the expressive brushwork of action painting and the scale and saturated hues of color-field painting. The European tradition of decorative abstraction is present in his work , but it is Motherwell's emphasis on meaning-emotional, political, and social-that distinguishes much of it from his fellow abstract expressionists.

Born on the West Coast, Motherwell studied philosophy at Stanford University, where he was exposed to the writings of the French Symbolist poets, most importantly that of Stphane Mallarmé. Mallarmés theories on the importance of emotional content in art had a profound influence on Motherwell's later works. After post-graduate studies at Harvard, he moved to New York City in 1940 to study at Columbia with the art historian Meyer Schapiro. Through Schapiro, Motherwell became exposed to New York's émirgré European painters, specifically the surrealists, and it was Schapiro who encouraged Motherwell to become a painter.

Surrealism's emphasis on automatism had an enormous impact on Motherwell and informed his work significantly. His friendship with the Chilean surrealist Roberto Matta resulted in a 1941 trip to Mexico where Motherwell produced his first well-known series, the Mexican Sketchbooks. Several years later he produced a set of collages at the behest of Peggy Guggenheim. Consisting of torn and paint-stained papers, these works—Surprise and Inspiration (1943)—were included in his first U.S. solo exhibition at Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery in 1944. Collage continued to be a primary mode of expression for Motherwell throughout the rest of his career.

In 1946, Motherwell received his first major solo exhibitions at the Arts Club of Chicago and the San Francisco Museum of Art, and was included in the "Fourteen Americans" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In the late forties, he began work on his most well known series, Elegies to the Spanish Republic, a 30-year, 140-painting odyssey that takes the Spanish Civil War as its primary theme. The Elegies employ an abstract language as a means of exploring political and social realities. The motif of the ElegiesÛan alternating pattern of bulbous shapes and columnar forms-can be read as an indirect, open-ended reference to the experience of loss and the heroics of stoic resistance.

An influential teacher and theorist, Motherwell taught at Black Mountain College in the late forties and at Hunter College in New York during the fifties. A prolific writer and editor, he established the Documents of Modern Art series in 1944 and published and contributed to numerous books and magazines.

Robert Motherwell died in 1991 at the age of 76. His works are held in most major museum collections worldwide. Numerous publications and monographs about Motherwell and his work have been published; one of the most notable is H. H. Arnason's Robert Motherwell (NY: Abrams, 1977; 2nd ed. 1982).

1. Robert Motherwell, quoted in The New American Painting, New York: Museum of Modern Art 1959, p.56

2. Robin Plummer: "Robert Motherwell " The Oxford Companion to Western Art. Ed. Hugh Brigstocke. Oxford University Press, 2001. Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press, 2005. [6/13/2006], http://www.groveart.com/

3. Ibid.

4. According to the Guggenheim Museum, Motherwell's first solo exhibition was held at the Raymond Duncan Gallery in Paris in 1939.